On Sunday, it was really windy here and, as happens sometimes on days like that, the furnace quit working. Ice went down to the basement and convinced it to start several times, and the last time, I went down there with him so he could show me one of the tricks he uses. While he was demonstrating, a fuse blew and he had to replace it with, of all things, a fuse from the van (just the fuse for the horn).

After he went to bed, it quit again (twice) but I got it started. I was prepared to stay up all night to keep an eye on it but, by about 3:30am, I was convinced that it was going to stay working (at least until he was due to get up less than an hour later) so I went to bed.

Now, the higher grades at my kids' school had a ski trip planned for today. They were going to Chicopee this year so L had to be at the school by 7:15am (which was better than when they used to go to Talisman and had to be at the school by 5:45am, except that Ice could still be home and see that she got there on time.... but I digress...). She was nervous about going and set her alarm to go off at 6am. Based on all of the weather reports I heard on Sunday night, I was sure the trip would be cancelled and I tried to prepare her for that but I don't think she really believed me.

So she woke me up at 6am, I got my ass out of bed by 6:10am, got down here, checked the school board's website and sure enough, just like I figured, the trip was cancelled (they could have told us that on Sunday night but I guess that would have been too thoughtful). L's alarm woke K up and all the activity woke J up so everybody was down here by 6:30am. Much much too early.

I explained to L why the trip was cancelled but she was still disappointed. I told her that the guy on the radio said it was -25C and with the wind chill, -36C (or something like that). She went out to the kitchen, checked the thermometer (which, for several reasons, always shows the temperature as warmer than it really is), came back and told me that it said the temperature was “only -20C.” Only, indeed.

I sent the kids off to school at 8:30am and, after a while, got on the couch for a nap. I knew I'd never make it through the day if I didn't have one and I figured better earlier than later.